I'm not bothering to put a spoiler warning here. If you're an American Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and you haven't heard, you need to know. If you're in the UK and don't want to know, sorry.
So here it is. Last week Entertainment Weekly (and, thereby, every media outlet in the US and many abroad) carried the news: Sarah Michelle Gellar will no longer be our beloved Slayer. ''Buffy, in this incarnation, is over.''
I won't discuss possible spinoffs here. It's not important right now. And, besides, I trust Joss to make the right decision there. He's never let me down before.
It's been seven years. I remember vividly the first episode I watched. It was during Season 2 and it was a complete accident. Andrew had been trying to get me to watch it for a year. I flatly refused to purposely turn on a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer and waste an hour of my week. One night, we were flipping around during commercials and stumbled upon this incredibly intense scene.
There is this great music playing (from La Boheme) and roses all over the stairs - a romantic scene. The production values lead me to believe I am watching a film. We are entranced almost instantly. Some English guy comes in and calls a woman's name. There's a note telling him to meet her upstairs (actually, it just says, "Upstairs" - sexy!). Ooh, la la! We lean forward in our seats. He looks at the champagne, follows the rose petals up the stairs, and finally opens the bedroom door. And there she is, beautifully splayed out on the bed, her raven hair shining. She is dead.
I was floored. We watched until the end of that episode, when Giles calls Willow and Buffy, who are huddled together at Buffy's house for safety from Buffy's now-evil love, Angel. We didn't know that at the time, though - although we were dying to know the back-story. I didn't know - or wouldn't believe - what I was watching until the end credits. Later this would become my favorite season, and I would learn the title of the episode ("Passion").
After that night, after those 10 minutes or so, I never missed an episode. We quickly caught up (or nearly so) because, at the time, the WB was playing Buffy two nights per week. They did these previews with the announcer we called the "whispery guy" - remember him? He'd hiss about the next "Buuuufeeeee". So by the end of Season 2, or the summer after it, we were only missing two episodes of Buffy backlog.
So that's how it all started, long about six years ago now. When I was a legal secretary, I had a Buffy the Vampire Slayer poster in my office. My boss thought it was hilarious. I bought (or was given) the soundtracks, the t-shirts, the Watcher's Guide (first one), the DVDs. I joined the fan club, and even dressed up as Buffy for Halloween (Andrew was Angel that year) complete with a foam rubber version of Mr. Pointy. Within a matter of months, I was a fangirl, memorizing episode titles and dialogue from the show, and crying nearly every episode.
And this week, Sarah Michelle Gellar made the announcement I knew would come. This is the end of my favorite show of all time. Many of my readers and friends have asked me if I am shocked or angry or woeful. I will tell you honestly: I am neither surprised nor heartbroken. I think it's time.
Don't get me wrong, a part of me is devastated that Joss will no longer bring me new and surprising adventures of the Scoobies. But it can't last forever, and I'd rather see things go out like this - a tremendous season with a full cast of characters I love - than see it dwindle and convulse to an unspectacular, contrived ending.
Things have come full-circle. The show that started out as the story of a girl coming to terms with her calling has returned to the theme of duty, love and sacrifice. This season is one of the strongest ever (I think it's the best since Season 2). If it had ended at the end of Season 5, with "The Gift" as the last episode, I would have been heartbroken, but not entirely surprised. It would have been okay, but crushing because of the way it ended. This is like bonus time. Even if the same *thing* happens to Buffy at the end of this season, it's not the same. Now we know where she'll be - we've got insight. Plus we got two more seasons of great stories and characters.
I'm happy I got to be there for it when it got complicated, and for all those times, year after year, to cry out to invisible Joss Whedon, "How are they going to get out of THIS!? It's impossible! They're all going to die!" And then to watch them weave their web and save the world while making pop culture references.
They've done an amazing thing at Buffy. They've created 7 seasons (well, 6.5 really, since it was a mid-season replacement) of stories that are interesting, character-driven, innovative and sturdy. All but a very few will hold up over time. Go back and watch an epi from Season 1 now - it has most likely only improved with time, if the costumes and makeup are a little outdated. Watching Cordelia thumb her nose at the Scoobies only sweetens her later development. Watching Willow pine after Xander is sweet and sad and adorable, even if we know she'll outgrow it and move on to much different things. What's most amazing is watching how far ahead the producers' (especially Joss') vision went; how they wove intricate and subtle foreshadowing into the stories very early on.
I've seen every episode - usually several times - and I can honestly say I think they were almost all Emmy-worthy. I've seen nearly every episode of ER and can't say nearly the same for it, although the "academy" sure seems to eat it up. Don't even get me started on some of the shows that have been given Emmy statuettes over Buffy thanks to closed-minded snobbery and foolishness (I've lost all respect for the Emmy awards and the Academy in the last six years, but if it were worth its salt, Buffy would have won many long ago, and not just for makeup).
Buffy is well-rounded, at once funny and dramatic. So often the funniest, most light-hearted episodes contained a strain of heartache or a striking, surprise ending; or will later turn out to have been a foreshadowing of something far more serious. While you can watch an episode, the most amazing thing is seeing how the major story arcs play on in the long-term, and how the characters change and yet remain our friends.
The thing is, those of us who are die-hard fans would probably never get enough, and yet, this is enough. It is time for the ride to end - in glory (no pun intended). Let's go out strong. And then, even when we aren't getting fresh weekly installments of the best show ever, we'll have many, many years to watch our favorites on FX and on DVD. We can go to nerdy conventions and still visit our obsessy websites and still be all about the Buffage, even if Sarah Michelle Gellar and the Scoobies have hung up their stakes and called it a night.
Posted by Erin at March 6, 2003 03:12 PM